Chapter 5
JENNY
Grocery shopping with Mary is a good way to keep my mind off things.
By things, of course, what I mean is Lucas fucking Cross … and the fact that I can’t seem to avoid him. Every time I think I’m finally free of him, he wanders around a corner with a shirt so tight it should be illegal, humming a merry fucking tune. I want to throttle him most of the time.
I staunchly refuse to think about all the other things I want to do to him.
It’s only been three days since I’ve been back, and I get more and more flustered every time I see him. My face is in a semi-permanent state of blushing, and I’d rather not be stuck with tomato-face, even if I can brush it off as anger.
So when Mary mentioned that she was heading out to do the weekly grocery run, I invited myself along. The few precious hours away from the ranch were good for me, and Mary’s a natural chatterbox, so I had plenty to distract myself with.
I was actually in a pretty good mood by the time we turned into the long dirt driveway leading up to the house, but it all comes plummeting right back down when I see a familiar form in front of the house.
“What the hell is he doing here?” I spit, my words more a curse than a question.
His broad back is mostly bare, nothing but a thin, sweat-soaked tank top in between his skin and open air.
Dirt is smudged halfway up his biceps, his hands covered by thick gardening gloves.
Empty plastic flower pots sit in a stack to one side of his thighs, with a row of them still waiting to be planted lined out along the walkway.
“Everett asked him to replant the flower beds,” Mary says, a hint of a question in her voice.
I could’ve figured that much out myself, thanks.
I wasn’t asking what he was doing right now, I was asking where he got the fucking balls to waltz right back into my life and who the hell told him he could look so at ease in front of my house.
If he keeps going at this rate, he’s going to ruin my carefully constructed existence just as badly as he’s wrecking the flower beds.
“Fucking hell, has he ever ever heard of a color scheme?” I grumble when he stretches to the side, revealing a riot of blues and pinks and yellows.
Mary arches a brow, slowing the car to a crawl in the driveway as she glances between me and the hulking asshole hunched over in front of the porch.
“They go together, don’t they?” she asks carefully. “It looks nice.”
“Yeah, if you’re colorblind,” I say with a snort. “He’s not even planting them in a pattern, it’s all just random. I’ll bet good money none of those are annuals. We’ll have a half dead garden for most of the year, if they even take root in the first place.”
Mary hums curiously, brows hiking up even higher as she parks the car.
“You sound awfully bitter about some flower arrangements,” she muses. “Something got you worked up, or did you just develop a passion for perennials overnight?”
I scowl at Mary’s teasing, rushing to unclip my seatbelt so I can get all of this over with. The faster I can get away from Lucas, the better.
“I’m not bitter about anything.” Except for having my heart broken, and being left behind, and Lucas’s insistence on acting like things are just peachy between us. “I just don’t like people who can’t do their jobs.”
I shove my door open before stepping out, hoping the way I slam it shut behind me will signal quite a firm end to the conversation.
This is Mary, though. I should know better. She’s like a dog with a damn bone.
“That’s a bit harsh,” she says, joining me at the trunk to pull bags of groceries out. “Don’t you think you’re being a little ridiculous? As far as I know, he’s been nothing but polite since he got here. Did he do something I don’t know about?”
Ha. “Polite” and “Lucas Cross” don’t belong in the same sentence together.
If I hadn’t gotten to know Mary’s particular brand of meddling, I’d think she was genuinely curious.
As it is, though, I’m not stupid enough to think she doesn’t know why Lucas gets on my nerves so much.
I place the bags in my hands back down in the trunk with a thud and turn to face her properly, hands on my hips.
“I know Dad told you about my history with that asshole,” I hiss, wishing I could yell but knowing I need to keep my voice down. “He’s done plenty, and I don’t want to be around him. End of story.”
Mary just shrugs, leaning against the side of the car with an amused glint in her eyes and a grin teasing at the corners of her mouth.
“Just asking. Everett told me you two dated in high school, but he said you two broke off on pretty okay terms,” she says, her voice carefully light.
Pretty okay terms? Jesus fuck, is the old man blind?
I cried myself to sleep for months after Lucas left me, my whole fucking life changed.
Sure, Dad didn’t know the details of our plans, but it must have set something off in his head when I went to community college instead of going to Tallahassee.
“Oh, yeah, we were both just thrilled to break up,” I say waspishly. “It was a blast, best memory I have of our time together.”
Mary looks surprised at the vehement anger in my voice, but we don’t get a chance to talk further before a deep, rumbling voice cuts in from behind me.
Speak of the motherfucking devil.
“Can I help y’all bring those in?” Lucas asks, polite as can be. As he always is, despite my claims to the contrary.
“No, definitely—”
“That’d be fantastic, thank you, Lucas,” Mary damn near shouts over me. “All the heavy bags are in the backseat, if you could get those.”
And then she’s off, arms laden with tote bags full of groceries, leaving me steaming with anger as I gape after her. Alone. With Lucas.
Goddamnit.
What the fuck is everyone’s problem? Since when do we just let people show up and just give them a fucking job? If Dad was feeling altruistic, why not find a couple people in town who needed jobs, that we don’t have some tortured history with?
Why did it have to be Lucas fucking Cross?
“What’s with the face?” he asks, with a teasing snort.
I hate him, I hate him, I fucking hate him.
“I don’t have a fucking face,” I scoff.
He stares at me. I stare right back. We both blink, and my face goes bright red when I realize what I just said.
Lucas tosses his head back on a gut-deep, booming laugh.
His hair sticks to his skin, glistening with sweat in the early afternoon sun, and I ruthlessly ignore the urge to lick it straight off of him.
He’s filthy, covered in grime and potting soil, but he makes it look impossibly good.
His tattoos twist all the way up his arms to spill over his shoulders and down his chest, just barely visible through the white of his tank top.
So many new ones, pieces I’m seeing for the first time right now, lines my fingers have never traced before.
The thought brings a sour taste to the back of my throat.
Lucas has lived a whole life after he left me, and all I get to see are the marks left behind. I hate it.
“Don’t have a face, huh?” he asks with a chuckle. “Guess that pretty thing on your head belongs to someone else, then.”
We both fall silent again.
He looks as shocked to have said that as I am to hear it.
It’s a reminder of how he used to talk to me, always peppering in endearments and little compliments so casually I missed them half the time.
My heart pounds traitorously in my chest. How fucking dare he?
I hate the look on his face, hate that I recognize the softness around his eyes as affection and amusement, hate that he can probably read me just as well as I can read him.
Why couldn’t he have stayed gone? He already left once, and I don’t have the willpower to stay away from him. I never did. Now, when he’s put on fifty pounds in pure muscle and grown into his bulk properly? I don’t stand a chance.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Jenny?” Lucas’s voice is soft, barely loud enough to carry over to me, and I find myself leaning forward to catch the sound before it flits away. “Thought you couldn’t stand me?”
There’s a hint of something dark in his voice, something that might be guilt, or maybe sorrow.
But his eyes? There’s nothing but fire there, heat and warmth and promises that he’s already broken, but scream like a siren song to me anyway.
My whole body buzzes with what I refuse to admit is desire, my lips parting instinctively at the sudden need pulsing in my gut.
“I can’t. Fuck off, Cross,” I say with a snarl.
He shudders, teeth catching his bottom lip as he grins wickedly at me.
“You know I love that attitude of yours,” he croons, all pleased and inviting. “Keep going.”
I choke on my words, on the arousal searing through me like fucking lightning, on the sudden desire to yank him closer by his tank top and kiss him until he stops running his stupid mouth.
“Shut up.”
He takes a step closer, a bag of groceries slung carelessly over his shoulder, his bicep stretched and bulging with the weight.
“You want me to shut up?” he asks, blue eyes alight with glee and greed. “Shut me up, then.”
I gape at him, my hands clenching over the bags in the trunk in an attempt to ground myself.
He’s been everywhere I look since I got back, but he hasn’t been like this.
Hasn’t hit on me, hasn’t done more than say good morning and crack a joke here and there.
Something about this feels off — like I stepped on a live wire I didn’t even know was there, tripped a bomb, and there’s no going back.
The heat in Lucas’s eyes is anything but friendly, right now.
No, he looks like he wants to devour me.
And I can’t stand the fact that I want to let him.
The moment stretches on for what feels like hours, nothing but the racing of my heart and an impossibly strong pull between the two of us. It would be so easy to close the distance. What’s one kiss? It could even be a hate-kiss, nothing but fury and energy.
It wouldn’t change anything.
But then Lucas’s grin softens at the corners, and he drops his shoulders into a posture that’s far less demanding, less controlling.
Watching him switch so easily into nonchalance yanks me right back into reality.
We’re in front of the house, where anyone could see us, bags of groceries in hand. He’s my ex, who I hate.
God, what the fuck was I thinking?
“You know, if you want something, all you have to do is ask,” he says casually, a lazy grin on his ridiculously handsome face. The moment has passed, thank God — but I know it’s still only a heartbeat away. And so does he, which he makes clear when he says, “I’ll give you whatever you want, Jenny.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I splutter, desperate to save face.
He chuckles, the glittering amusement in his eyes only growing as he hefts another few bags into his arms. “Whatever you say,” he drawls.
He drags his eyes over me, slow and intense, lingering on the low cut of my shirt as he licks his lips.
“You let me know if you change your mind. I’ll give it to you good, if you ask nice. ”
And just like that, he turns and heads up the walkway toward the house, leaving me to stand at the open trunk. I stare sightlessly into the sea of grocery bags, furious arousal pulsing through me with every beat of my heart.
“Rot in hell, Cross,” I mutter under my breath, gripping the grocery bags so hard that the canvas straps will probably leave indents in my palms. “Rot in fucking hell.”